K, everybody ready? March Forth! (I know, but if we don’t have old jokes, sometimes we have no jokes at all!) Anyway…it’s Monday, March 4, 2019, a continuation of the weird contrast of bright sun and cold wind that we alternately enjoyed and took shelter from all weekend. Some of us are getting reacquainted with the joys of running a chain saw. Our high will be around 40 to 45 again, at least ten degrees below normal. Then tomorrow night there’s a possibility of snow showers, with the highest lowland chances in the south Willamette Valley. Again. Sunrise 6:43 AM, sunset 6:01 PM.
That thermometer dropped into the 20s overnight, and the wind brought the feels-like temp near single digits….so Portland and Multnomah County opened several hundred extra shelter beds, and there are outreach angels who work to make sure that the person we literally step over in a sleeping bag in a downtown doorstoop is, right now, safe and warm. Southern Oregon is struggling back to its feet from the snowfall: school’s back in Roseburg today and Oakridge tomorrow. Their power situation is much better, but there are isolated exceptions where it’ll be another week before crews can even get in.
And there’s world news attention, and down there in the TMSG links, for a 36-year old Sunriver man who smartly went off-roading without his phone ahead of the blizzard and spent five nights stuck in his Toyota 4Runner with his Australian Shepherd, Ally–and the only food in the glove compartment, three packs of fast-food hot sauce. After being found by a snowmobiler and hauled out by S&R, he tweeted, “Taco Bell fire sauce saves lives!” Maybe he fed it to Ally, and that’s how they kept warm.
The Blue Mountains are in for abundant snowfall tomorrow night. Any Dripsters live up there? Alas, we no longer have the Amtrak Pioneer that climbed through Eastern Oregon’s mountain ranges. I took that train in the winter to Denver just once, the year before Amtrak dropped it. We hit a hard midnight snow in the Wallowas that slowed the train to a crawl, and I wondered if it might stop. But that time, it didn’t.
Tornados gashed a stretch of the South from Alabama to Florida, killing at least two dozen people.
The Portland Womxn’s March (the “x” makes room for nonconforming gender identifications) drew a crowd guessed by police at 2,000 to downtown Portland. Creative signs abounded; examples include “Without Hermione, Harry Potter would have died in Book One” and “Girls Just Want to have Fundamental Rights” and “Hear Me Roar” and “Love Not Hate Makes America Great” and “Men of Quality Don’t Fear Equality” and many others. “Eve was Framed.” something about a “Public Cervix Announcement.” And “Though Shalt Not Mess with Women’s Reproductive Rights–Fallopians 1:21.” Rally troll Joey Gibson showed up and apparently engaged with someone wearing a mask, but nothing escalated, nobody was arrested. So a good day, no?
Watchdogs are raising alarms over the still-new president of Portland State University, Rahmat Shoureshi, whose staff has been a revolving door, with exitees complaining of bullying, degrading, and micromanaging behavior, and whose on-the-taxpayer-dime spending habits are alleged to be lavish–which doesn’t go down well on a campus where students are stretching every dime to pay the rising tuition.
John Hickenlooper, former Colorado governor and Denver mayor–and before that, a brewpub operator–announced a 2020 presidential run this morning. Describes himself as an “extreme moderate.”
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The Blazers beat Charlotte 118-108, so they have one game at Memphis Tuesday to wrap up a stellar road trip, 5-1 so far. And! The University of Oregon women outlasted Arizona State 66-59, to notch their second straight Pac 12 championship. Plus the field is set for this week’s state basketball championships. I know that Dripfolks have family playing in all kinds of tourneys….and it’s fun reading about your experiences.
As much a sign of spring here as a crocus poking through snow or a hot run by the Blazers….the first member of the 2019 Rose Festival Court will be selected today from Lincoln High School.
This is the week of Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday…and this coming weekend, we leap ahead into Daylight Time.
Happy birthday to Portland PGA great Peter Jacobson, who’s shooting 65 today.
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Let’s see if we can remedy the Mondayness of today with some stories of good people doing good things!
–“‘I’m so proud of them’: Boys jump in to help school bus driver during medical emergency”
–“Man and dog snowbound five days in Oregon survive on taco sauce”
–“College student brings infant to class after childcare falls though–so the prof held the baby through the lecture so student could take notes”
–“This elementary school principal reads books on Facebook to ensure her students have a bedtime story”
–“‘That’s Canada for you’: Shoppers leave cash, IOUs at unlocked grocery store”
Details in the Coffee Cup, right here!
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Maybe you saw the tree that the winds dropped on the fence in our field. How many chopping days until Easter?
Portland's Daily Drip 